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We learn by doing, not just by thinking. So I feel like beyond Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Judaism, or Christianity we need today to think about a global spirituality. We need to make it very personal and transformative for one self, and each other, together for those who are interested.

Surya Das

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Surya Das
Age: 73
Born: 1950
Born: December 26
Poet
Writer
New York City
New York
Need
Christianity
Feel
Interested
Feels
Beyond
Transformative
Needs
Personal
Hinduism
Make
Learn
Judaism
Think
Together
Spirituality
Thinking
Today
Global
Like
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Buddhism

More quotes by Surya Das

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You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. This may sound like a cliche, but it's true nonetheless. Often the greatest doubts occur just before a breakthrough.
Surya Das
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The heart is an organ of perception.
Surya Das
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Spiritually speaking, everything that one wants, aspires to, and needs is ever-present, accessible here and now - for those with eyes to see.
Surya Das
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Well neither of us were Buddhists then because it was new to us. We were 60's people. Psychedelic relics, you know... whatever, right on, radicals and world changers, social peaceniks perhaps, with a Buddhist spiritual veneer.
Surya Das
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I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.
Surya Das
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Our lack of compassion stems from our inability to see deeply into the nature of things.
Surya Das
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But you know, eventually that does kind of veneer, chemical veneers that you apply, they sink in. For better or for worse, so it's good to think about what kind of veneer you shellac yourself with. How superficial it may seep into your skin and into your blood stream and totally take over your heart, your brain, everything.
Surya Das
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When the sunset of life arrives, and its twilight shadows fade away while dreams of the next begin to appear more vividly may the inner-light essence of the Buddha, and all the radiant awakened ones, continuously guide us onwards and upwards, on the path of spiritual enlightment.
Surya Das
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Enlightenment is not about becoming divine. Instead it's about becoming more fully human. . . . It is the end of ignorance.
Surya Das
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Embracing our environment is a good direction, a very spiritual direction. It's too Aristotelian to separate man from the animals and man humans from the environment.
Surya Das
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Sex, creativity, music, art, family, love, beauty, and creative imagination are all part of the spiritual path in the tantric traditions. So I think that for today that has a lot to say to us about not dividing ourselves from ourselves.
Surya Das
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So we're all living spirit. It's not about isms and schims or religions. Religions are almost like political institutions, but the heart of it is the spirituality.
Surya Das
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One-half plus one-half does not equal one one whole plus one whole equals relational wholeness.
Surya Das
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Other people can’t cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others don’t make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness.
Surya Das
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Really, whatever I was seeking and looking into in those days like creative arts, chant, the muse being in touch with the muse for poetry and writing and music. It's all part of the spirit and if we look particularly at Hinduism and Buddhism, the tantric stream of those traditions totally embraces all aspects of human life and life on this world.
Surya Das
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We're human beings trying to understand and cultivate what it means to feel divine love. We have to start with small, realistic goals.
Surya Das
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Spiritual joy is devotion, it's like a virus you know? It's a benevolent virus, but it spreads. It's infectious. Ram Dass was like a mentor in those days.
Surya Das
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On the other side, is a substantial, more materialism, everything is real long to the extent we can see or measure it, and things are as real as I think they. That's way too materialistic or substantialist, because things are not really what they seem to be.
Surya Das
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Everyone has values, and values their family, values their health, their sanity, their safety and security, and their families, their parents, their children, their pets, their environments, well-being in general.
Surya Das
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Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and fine serenity.
Surya Das